Chương 66: Chapter Sixty-Six

I climb aboard the thunderhawk, escorted by thirty-six, carapace-clad heralds and four kataphrons. Each person secures themselves in a harness that hangs from the ceiling, or a jumpseat folded into the hull. The other two recovered thunderhawks are also loaded with infantry and a chimera each. Twelve, armed, class one D-POTs are escorting three, class two D-POTs.

Each class two has its maximum complement of troops and armour at three hundred and thirty-six heavy infantry, or twenty-eight squads, and eight armoured vehicles, each. No cyber mastiffs are going on this mission as I doubt the conflict will be long enough to require the extended supplies they carry.

Twelve vehicles have been swapped out for sixty kataphrons and the remainder are four chimera, four hydra mobile anti-air vehicles, and four leman russ tanks configured for anti-armour operations as leman russ annihilators. The hydra can do double duty as anti-infantry weapons if required, though it is somewhat wasteful of the ammunition as you just don't need quad-linked guns against tau infantry.

As the thunderhawk lifts off, I double check my own wargear: servo harness with a microfusion core, flamer, four mechadendrites, two nanyte lathes, and a servo arm holding a MOA shield. One heavy arc-rifle, one power weapon (pipe), a shoulder mounted hellfire pistol and a micro missile launcher, holding twenty five, bolter sized rounds on the other shoulder.

Finally, one set of dragonscale power armour with a conversion field beneath the right pauldron and a puck-grenade dispenser beneath my left pauldron holds a variety of thirty-six grenades. I think there is still room to improve my loadout, but I can't carry much more and I have yet to come across something I am willing to swap for something I already have. We exit the hangar and circle the Distant Sun.

A second, then third flight of D-POTs join us, each fifteen strong, with twelve class ones and three class twos each, all configured for air support and superiority. As I examine the external feeds I see an angry purple scar coalescing above Marwolv. I vox Maeve, "Commander Muire, a warp breach is imminent. Initiate operation Jadeite Gamble." A stern voice pounds through my skull, "Acknowledged Magos. Deploying."

While my stomach is long gone, replaced by a nanite factory, it still feels like it dropped out from under me as the thunderhawk accelerates hard and we de-orbit at great speed; the roar of the engines and an increasingly thick atmosphere fill my senses, rattling my bones and repeatedly pop my ears. The barely flying armoured brick I'm descending in is not subtle, lighting up the twilight gloom with a grand fireball and, with thirty seconds until touchdown, we start taking fire.

Mr Cygnus and the two pilots do a fine job, jinking left and right, as well as randomly altering our speed, keeping the tau defences from scoring a direct hit, though one round does punch shrapnel through the hull on the port side, instantly killing two heralds and spraying the compartment with blood. There's too much noise to hear the swearing, but everyone flinches and I see hands tighten around their harnesses.

With a lurch, we hit the sand and slide a solid twelve metres, right into the tau's prepared defences, smashing sandbags and crushing a heavy weapons position. The heralds hit the central release button on their harnesses and the front ramp slams into the sand.

The kataphrons rev their engines and shoot out the exit, followed by the heralds with their MOA shields raised and their mark one Marwolv lasgun barrels resting in the side notch on their shield as they exit in a jog and fire into the enemy's shallow trenches. Dozens of missiles on each side struggle for temporary dominance, with a handful getting through on both sides, but none manage sufficient weight of fire to take down the shielded positions and aircraft.

As I exit the thunderhawk my auger fills in my surroundings, feeding the information directly into my head. There are seven sand bars, arranged in a cluster, six hundred metres from the coast. The largest is seven hundred and thirty metres long and fifty-two metres wide whereas the smallest barely covers eighty-two square metres. Two tau submarines rest between the sandbars sending streams of volatile plasma into the air.

Seven hundred odd tau, four battle suits, and six drone tanks fortify the area, secure behind sandbags, deflector shields, and fio'tak barricades. Most of their forces are concentrated on the outer sandbars as the largest sandbar is secured by the two massive submarines and much of the largest island is filled with cages full of humans and a grisly altar, dripping with the effluvial overflow of sacrificed humans.

There, upon the central fio'tak platform is Aun Lhas'Rhen'Na, a tall, blue-skinned individual in flowing orange and white robes and an armoured breastplate. He pushes a body from the altar with a long staff as four tau drag a man kicking and screaming towards him. No strange symbols adorn the altar, neither are mind bending runes tattooed in blood on Lhas'Rhen'Na's skin, yet this maddened xenos is affecting the warp all the same.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. Just in case he's an idiot, I line up a shot and fire. Three, blue-white intertwining spheres streak across five hundred and eighty metres and slam into the deflector shield surrounding the vile site. Lhas'Rhen'Na looks over at me and laughs, then beckons the fire warriors closer. They throw the man on the bloody altar and hold down his limbs.

Lhas'Rhen'Na saunters over and lashes out with a wavy bladed dagger and the warp fills the air with the stink of ozone that, despite the closed loop of my armour, I can somehow still smell. The corpse is rolled off and the fire warriors return to the cages for another victim. Above Marwolv, the purple scar sparks with greater malevolence and a modest flock of large birds gather above the sandbars, a couple kilometres above us, waiting to feast on the carnage.

Mr Cygnus starts feeding my suit targeting data, picking out all the powerful weapons in the tau battlegroup and assigning tentative priorities as it coordinates with the other two thunderhawks as well as Commander Muire's staff back in orbit and hundreds of other sensors, updating everything in real time. The heralds also tag threats using their helmets and are fed priorities, though it is up to the officers on the ground on how to achieve their assigned primary goals.

The forces streaming from the thunderhawks huddle behind the two chimeras, form barricades at two points, either end of the main sand bar. I am much further from the largest sand bar and add my weight of fire to the carnage, helping my forces shift the tau from the smallest sand bar and establish our own position. My kataphrons are already destroyed, but their wrecks make good cover and help protect my three squads. It isn't quite enough though and the tau have cut down another seven heralds.

Overclocking my shield, I cover my remaining heralds, giving them a chance to dive into cleared enemy trenches. The conversion field holds for two point seven seconds, then fails to the overwhelming barrage of plasma. It will be at least a minute before I get it back and I join my heralds behind the tau defences, keeping my body low.

Meanwhile, the thunderhawks' dorsal cannon, the same you'd find on a leman russ tank, launch high explosive, armour piercing rounds at the anti-air installations, their focused fire bringing down the shielded fixed defences one at a time. By the time thunderhawks are unloaded, the only air defences remaining are the eight remaining guns on the two submarines.

The thunderhawks can't punch through the shielding on the submarines and take off hoping the tau don't decide to target them instead of the approaching reinforcements, and skim the waves, sending sea spray high into the air as they swing round for a final attack run before they take their distance. My heavy weapon teams deploy in the scattered remains of the tau trenches while keeping their bellies close to the ground.

Once they're set up, they start laying down fire and, with the assistance of the two chimera, finally start returning enough fire that the tau's punishing fusillade dies out as, they too, scramble for cover. The crisis battlesuits and drone tanks deploy their drones that sweep towards my barely entrenched forces, flying high enough they can shoot down onto my infantry.

With everyone distracted by forty drones, the battlesuits take their chances firing burst cannons and fusion blasters at the chimeras, reducing both to sturdy wrecks. Only one driver makes it out. With the battlesuits exposed, Mr Cygnus and its brethren take their shots blasting one battlesuit apart and sending the other three scrambling behind the submarines to get out of the line of fire. Another wave of missiles from my air support batters the island.

With the shields wearing down and the anti-air compromised, many imperial missiles strike home, taking out the enemy drones harassing my infantry. With the air full of chaff, Commander Muire grasps the seconds-long opening to bring in the class two D-POTs. The class two delta pattern orbital transports are huge vehicles, sixty metres long, seventy eight metres wide, and twenty metres tall, rivalling the submarines in their volume and defences.

Their void shields shrug off everything the tau can throw at them as tanks and kataphrons pour from their holds, followed by hundreds of troops. My conversion field recovers and I advance over the sand. My servo arm holds my MOA combat shield in front of me, automatically intercepting any shots that penetrate the conversion field. Stomping through the water to the altar I blast absolutely everything in my way, backed up by my heavy weapon teams and heralds, who remain in cover.

The reinforcing kataphrons pouring from the D-POTs are much less fragile and spread out from their insertion point, flanking the tau and aiding my assault. The distraction is just enough to allow the leman russ to deploy unopposed and they immediately turn their guns on the tau battlesuits, destroying all three of the remaining suits. I charge for the largest sandbar as the class two D-POTs deploy their underslung turrets on their wings, keeping the tau pinned behind their defences.

The submarines are less restrained and fire on the class twos. The angle means they can't get all their guns on one target and they have to split their fire. Void shields ripple beneath the onslaught and multiple shots score their hulls as the shields are gradually overwhelmed and fail to mitigate every shot. The tanks return the favour, trying to crack the submarines' deflector shields. Here, the success is more mixed.

The twin linked lascannons on the leman russ annihilators punch right through the deflector shields, through the hulls and out the otherside, but fail to hit anything important. I take several hits but manage to reach Aun Lhas'Rhen'Na without anything penetrating my armour. The ethereal holds his blade over another human and glances over at me and sneers. ++Aldrich, the tau ethereal is about to sacrifice a psyker.

++ I immediately open fire, repeated shots at close range, backed up by the hellfire pistols, short out Aun Lhas'Rhen'Na's deflector shield and blast him apart. His blue blood sprays over the altar and I look to the sky. The purple scar is sparking horribly, but it remains closed. While one threshold has been avoided, another is crossed and the crazed birds of Marwolv dive bomb the central platform and rip into the psyker before I can rescue him.

It's too much and, with a tortured scream, the materium's boundary tears. All over Marwolv tens of thousands of psykers perish, blood trickling from their eyes and nose, their choking deaths saturating Marwolv with psychic power. Out of the rift pushes a two headed bird, bigger than the Iron Crane, with dark blue feathers and gold chokers around its necks. A hideous chuckle booms over Marwolv and I freeze, terrified we are all going to be ripped into the warp and consumed.

"Just as planned," croaks the great bird.